Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Public Policy

December 03, 2013

Climate Change, the Green Patriarch, and the Disposition of Fear

Today at First Things’ On the Square feature, I question the tone and timing of Patriarch Batholomew’s recent message on climate change. While I do not object to him making a statement about the subject in conjunction with the opening of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, his initial reference, then silence, with regards to Typhoon Haiyan while other religious leaders offered their prayer, sympathy, and support to those affected, is disappointing. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2013

Amazon, Kmart, and the Moral Limits of Shopping

Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who is’t that can inform me? Continue Reading...
November 21, 2013

So, Why Exactly Doesn’t Healthcare.gov Work?

The Obama Administration has stated that 106,000 people have managed to sign up for health care on the Healthcare.gov site, a site 3-1/2 years in the making. Both HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius and Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Henry Cho, have been grilled by congressional committees as to the incredibly poor performance of the website. Continue Reading...
November 20, 2013

Cities Need The Black Middle Class

While overall crime rates are falling, in major U.S. cities the untold story is that crime is now more concentrated among the underclass. For example, The New York Times ran a story of the concentration of crime in the city of St. Continue Reading...
November 20, 2013

Hating the Homeless in Hawaii

Hawaii is consistently ranked as one of the states where most Americans want to live. But for many residents, the island life is more nightmare than tropical dream. The high cost of living and lack of affordable housing contributes to Hawaii having one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. Continue Reading...
November 14, 2013

Conservatives Need a Credible Alternative to ObamaCare

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru argue that conservatives now have a prime opportunity to offer a “credible alternative” to ObamaCare that would not only solve the serious problems of the healthcare system but would prevent a further lurch to the left if the current law fails: Seeing the pileup, Republicans might be tempted to step aside and let ObamaCare continue to disappoint and infuriate Americans. Continue Reading...